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?The Pulpit Commentaries - Ezekiel (Vol. 4)?(Joseph S. Exell) 37 Chapter 37 Verses 1-28
EXPOSITION
This chapter embraces, in its earlier section (Ezekiel 37:1-14), the
concluding portion of the "word of God" begun at Ezekiel 36:16; in its
later section (Ezekiel 36:15-28), an additional "word," to which the former
naturally leads. The earlier, under the figure of a resurrection of dry
bones, beheld by the prophet in vision, describes the political and
religious reawakening of Israel; in the later is depicted, by means of a
symbolic action, the reunion of its two branches. The first divides itself
into two parts-the vision (Ezekiel 36:1-10) and its interpretation (Ezekiel
36:11-14). The vision was to all appearance designed to meet the objections
the preceding picture of Israel's future glory might naturally be expected
to call forth. It was true that in the past Israel had often suffered a
decline in her national life, and as often experienced a revival. But with
the fall of her capital, the burning of her temple, the slaughter of her
people, and the expatriation of her nobles, her life was henceforth
extinct; and to speak of returning prosperity to her in such a condition
was like talking of the restoration of vitality to withered bones. Besides,
the exiles were, comparatively speaking, only a handful, and to picture
Judah's waste cities as being filled with flocks of men was like mocking
the dejected with hopes certain to be dashed to the ground. The Exposition
will show how the vision was fitted to dispel such despondent reflections.
Yet diversity of sentiment prevails as to whether the vision was intended
to predict an actual resurrection of the physically dead at the end of
time, or merely to symbolize an ideal resurrection of Israel, then
nationally dead.
1. The view, that what the prophet beheld in vision was the final
resurrection of mankind, though favored by Jerome, Calovius, and Kliefoth,
must be abandoned, not because the doctrine of a general resurrection would
not have been a powerful consolation to the pious-hearted in Israel, or
because that doctrine was not then known, but because, in the prophet's own
explanation, the bones are declared to be those, not of the whole family of
man, but merely of the house of Israel. At the same time, those
interpreters are right who, like Hengstenberg, Keil, and Plumptre, hold
that, even if the doctrine of a general resurrection had not been current
in Ezekiel's time, this vision was enough to call it into existence, and
even to lend strong probability to its truth.
2. Accordingly, the view is commonly preferred that, while an objective
reality to the prophet's mind, and by no means a mere rhetorical garb for
its conceptions, the vision was designed as a symbolic representation of
Israel's resuscitation; though here again opinions diverge both as to what
formed the mental background for the prophet's use of such a symbol, and as
to how it served to suggest the thought of Israel's revival. While some,
like Jerome and Hengstenberg, as above indicated, regard "the doctrine of
the proper resurrection" as "the presupposition of the expanded figurative
representation," others, with Havernick, find its historical basis in such
instances of raising from the dead as were performed by Elijah and Elisha,
and perhaps also in such passages as Isaiah 26:19. If Smend thinks the
vision was intended to assist Israel merely by suggesting that "the
unbelievable might happen," and Havernick that it was designed to inspire
hope by presenting to the mind a lively picture of the creative, life-
giving power of God, "which can raise even dead bones to life again," Ewald
finds its chief power to console in the thought "that the nation or
individual which does not despair of the Divine Spirit will not be forsaken
of this Spirit in any situation, but will always be borne on by it to new
life."
Ezekiel 37:1
The hand of the Lord was upon me. The absence of the customary "and" (comp.
Ezekiel 1:1, Ezekiel 1:3; Ezekiel 3:14, Ezekiel 3:22), wanting only once
again (Ezekiel 40:1), appears to indicate something extraordinary and
unusual in the prophet's experience. In the words of Ewald, such a never-
beheld sight one sees freely (by itself) in a moment of higher inspiration
or never;" and that in this whole vision the prophet was the subject of a
special and intensified inspiration is evident, not alone from the contents
of the vision, but also from the language in which it is recorded. And
carried me out in the Spirit of the Lord. So the Vulgate and Hitzig-a
translation which Smend thinks might be justified by an appeal to Ezekiel
11:24, in which the similar phrase, "Spirit of God (Elohim)," occurs;
though, with Grotius, Havernick, Keil, and others, he prefers the rendering
of the LXX; "And Jehovah carried me out in the Spirit." The Revised Version
combines the two thus: "And he carried me out in the Spirit of the Lord."
Keil suggests that the words, "of God," in Ezekiel 11:24, were omitted here
because of the word "Jehovah" immediately following. And set me down in the
midst of the valley. As the article indicates, the valley in the
neighborhood of Tel-Abib, where the prophet received his first instructions
concerning his mission (Ezekiel 3:22); although Hengstenberg holds, wrongly
we think, that "the valley here has nothing to do with the valley in
Ezekiel 3:22." Which (literally, and it) was full of bones; i.e. of men who
had been slaughtered there (Ezekiel 3:9; comp. Ezekiel 39:11), and whose
corpses had been left unburied upon the face of the plain (Ezekiel 3:3), so
that they were seen by the prophet. Whether these bones were actually in
the valley, or merely formed part of the vision, can only be conjectured,
though the latter opinion seems the more probable. At the same time, such a
plain as is here depicted may well have been a battle-ground on which
Assyrian and Chaldean armies had often met.
Ezekiel 37:2
And he caused me to pass by them round about. Not over, as Keil, Klie-foth,
and Plumptre translate, but round about them, so as to view them from every
side. The result of the prophet's inspection of the bones was to excite
within him a feeling of surprise which expressed itself in a twofold
behold; the first occasioned by a contemplation of their number, very many,
and their situation, in the open valley, literally, upon the face of the
valley; i.e. not underground, where they could not have been seen, but upon
the surface of the soil, and not piled up in heaps, but scattered over the
ground; and the second by a discernment of their condition as very dry, so
bleached and withered as to foreclose, not the possibility alone, but also
the thought of their resuscitation.
Ezekiel 37:3
Son of man, can these bones live? Whether or not this question was
directed, as Plumptre surmises, to meet despairing thoughts which had
arisen in the prophet's own mind, it seems reasonable to hold, with
Havernick, that the question was addressed to him as representing "ever
against God the people, and certainly as to this point the natural and
purely human consciousness of the same," to which Israel's restoration
appeared as unlikely an occurrence as the reanimation of the withered bones
that lay around. The extreme improbability, if not absolute impossibility,
of the occurrence, at least to human reason and power, is perhaps pointed
at in the designation "Son of man" here given to the prophet. The prophet's
answer, O Lord God, thou knowest, is not to be interpreted as proving that
to the prophet hitherto the thought of a resurrection had been unfamiliar,
if not completely absent, or as giving a direct reply either affirmative or
negative to the question proposed to him, but merely as expressing the
prophet's sense of the greatness of the wonder suggested to his mind, with
perhaps a latent acknowledgment that God alone had the power by which such
a wonder could, and therefore alone also the knowledge whether it would, be
accomplished (comp. Revelation 7:14).
Ezekiel 37:4
Prophesy upon (or, over) then bones. This instruction-which shows Jehovah
regarded the prophet's answer as equivalent to an admission that the
revivification of the bones lay within his (Jehovah's) power-was not a mere
command to predict, as in Ezekiel 6:2 and Ezekiel 11:4, but an injunction
to utter the Divine word through which the miracle (of creation, as it
really was) should be performed. "The significance of the command lies in
the fact that it taught the prophet that he was himself to be instrumental
in the great work of resuscitation. He who had been so often troubled with
the sense of impotence and failure, who had heard the people say of him,
'Both he not speak parables?' who had been to them as the lovely song of
one that hath a pleasant voice, and nothing more than that, was at last to
learn that the word of the Lord,' spoken by his lips, was mighty, and would
not return to him void" (Plumptre).
Ezekiel 37:5
I will cause breath to eater into you; literally, I am causing breath (or,
spirit) to enter into you. The real agent, therefore, in the resuscitation
of the bones was to be, not the prophet or the word, but Jehovah himself;
and that the end aimed at by the Divine activity was "life" shows the
breath spoken of (ruach) was not to be the wind, as in Ezekiel 37:9, or the
Spirit, but the breath of life, as in Genesis 6:17 and Genesis 7:22 (comp.
Genesis 2:7; Psalms 104:30; Isaiah 26:19).
Ezekiel 37:6
The process of revivification is now divided into two stages-a prelimin